Chapter 130 - 102: Pinnacle Showdown (3)
Chapter 130: Chapter 102: Pinnacle Showdown (3)
After a slight adjustment to the formation, the Elemental Druids summoned their respective Elemental Servants, and together, they advanced on the Golden Corps.
The two armies marched toward each other menacingly. Before the Steel-backed Porcupines and Giant Shield Guards had even closed the distance, they were attacked by the enemy’s ranged units.
The Golden Corps’ Holy Archers stuck to their previous tactic: each squad targeted a single Steel-backed Porcupine.
Since the melee units on both sides had yet to engage, there were no War Paladins to deliver any finishing blows. Thus, the archers didn’t use normal attacks. Instead, they imbued their arrows with Divine Energy to increase their attack power and armor-piercing capabilities.
As usual, a volley of arrows rained down upon the targeted Steel-backed Porcupines. The moment the first arrow struck, the marked porcupines knew they were being focused on. They immediately turned, bent down, and exposed their backs as much as possible.
The arrows, imbued with Divine Energy, packed a serious punch. A single volley was enough to strip a full-health Steel-backed Porcupine of nearly all its life, but it didn’t die.
In previous battles, there had been instances where Steel-backed Porcupines were focused down and killed before they could be rescued.
To address this, when Lin Yu upgraded the Steel-backed Porcupines’ skills, he chose a new ability: "Dying Guardian."
"Dying Guardian" would prevent a Steel-backed Porcupine from dying immediately when taking fatal damage. Instead, it would cling to its last point of health—a state of "health lock"—for five seconds. The ability had a one-day cooldown.
Five seconds was plenty of time for allied units to provide aid, drastically increasing the Steel-backed Porcupines’ survivability.
This ability proved immensely useful now. The damage, far exceeding the Steel-backed Porcupine’s maximum health, not only failed to kill it instantly but instead provided it with a tremendous amount of energy.
A massive volley of spines shot from its back, aimed directly at the Holy Archers.
This was the "Retaliatory Spines" ability, acquired during a previous upgrade. It allowed the Steel-backed Porcupine’s spines to ignore distance and attack the enemy that had damaged it. Lin Yu had chosen this upgrade option specifically because he knew the porcupines’ normal spine attacks had a short range and couldn’t counter long-range assaults.
A massive cloud of spines flew toward the Holy Archers. The dozen or so targeted Steel-backed Porcupines unleashed countless consecutive waves of spines, like a volley from an army of thousands, filling the sky in a dark, oppressive mass.
"Dodge!!!"
The Holy Archers were caught completely off guard, but they reacted in a flash, relying on their agility to leap toward open ground.
Most of the Holy Archers managed to dodge the spines. Only a few were unlucky enough to be hit while evading. However, thanks to the aid of the Wisdom Priests, the injuries were not fatal. Once the spines were removed, they were quickly healed by the Wisdom Priests’ casting.
The injured Steel-backed Porcupines were shielded by the others around them, protecting them from follow-up attacks. From the rear, the Elemental Druids cast what few healing spells they had, slowly restoring the porcupines’ health.
In contrast, the Giant Shield Guards now faced an assault from the Elemental Druids and their subordinate Elemental Servants.
A barrage of Elemental Missiles flew toward the Giant Shield Guards. The attacks from the Elemental Druids and Elemental Servants were remarkably coordinated. Different elements didn’t clash; each was assigned its own area, and conflicting elements were kept apart to prevent the various Elemental Missiles from interfering with one another.
As the Elemental Missiles crisscrossed with the friendly arrows and flew toward them, the Giant Shield Guards immediately raised their shields, hiding behind them. A golden ward materialized over the surface of each shield. They did not, however, link up to form a solid shield wall, as doing so would render them unable to move.
At the opportune moment, the War Paladins activated their auras. This time, however, was slightly different. They had replaced their Courage Aura with the "Elemental Guardian Aura."
The "Elemental Guardian Aura" served to bolster Magic defense and provide a certain degree of immunity to Magic.
At the same time, the Commanding Priests in the rear cast the "Spirit Shield" buff on the Giant Shield Guards.
"Spirit Shield" also increased Magic defense, but it additionally provided a dedicated shield with its own health pool specifically for absorbing Magic damage.
BOOM... BAM BAM BAM!
The dense barrage of Elemental Missiles slammed into the shields, knocking them askew in the Giant Shield Guards’ hands.
Even with their currently high Magic defense, the sheer power of the volley meant that quite a few Giant Shield Guards had their wards shattered. They were then struck directly by Elemental Missiles, losing a significant amount of health.
However, this lost health was quickly restored by the Wisdom Priests’ Divine Arts, and no one died.
The Elemental Druids, in turn, received reflected damage. The damage reflection from the War Paladins’ Thorn Aura ignored distance, affecting the Elemental Druids and their Elemental Servants directly.
Fortunately, the reflected damage wasn’t severe. The Elemental Druids cast a healing-over-time spell on themselves and slowly regenerated their health back to full.